Uri Orbach z"l raised refugees' profile

Point of No Return salutes Pensioner Affairs (Senior Citizens) Minister Uri Orbach z"l, who died  aged 54 some 10 days ago. The minister was responsible for the campaign for justice for Jewish refugees from Arab lands.

 Orbach died after fighting an unspecified blood illness.

Representing the Jewish Home party, Orbach took a break from political life last month to receive treatment and was hospitalized in Jerusalem’s Shaare Tzedek hospital, where doctors said they were fighting for his life.

While he held the ministerial portfolio, he helped raise the profile of the Jewish refugee issue. His ministry ran a radio advertising campaign in 2013.

The project was called “V’higateta l’bincha”: 'And you will tell your children'. The saying comes from the Passover Haggadah: and enjoins  Jews to pass on the story of their exodus from Egypt to succeeding generations.

Under Orbach's direction,  the Ministry of Senior Citizens had a key role in documenting and computerising data pertaining to Jews from Arab countries and their lost property. The purpose was to collect testimony of how life was for the Jews in Arab lands and what happened there while the people who remember it are still alive.

Orbach had been quoted as saying that collecting information "is important because of these people's right to their lost property, but the chances of receiving compensation are small…I don't want to commit to missions that we may not be able to handle, but we will up the pace of the documentation," he said.

However, the Pensioners' Affairs Ministry Director-General Gilad Smama said that his budget was too low for the project. By the end of 2014, Smama expected the ministry to gather testimony from 3,000 people. 

“There is no more just compensation demand that the one by Jews who emigrated from Arab countries,” Orbach wrote on his Facebook page. “Many were forced to leave their homes in the early 1950s after ongoing harassment and persecution,” he wrote, adding that his own Ministry had recently embarked on a project to categorize and list the lost property.

However, he cautioned against a  proposal floated by the US in 2014 for compensation for Jewish refugees to be included in a peace agreement with the Palestinians.  “The compensation component, justified as it was, was thrown into the agreement to convince Israelis to accept the proposal, as if to say that the more territory we give up, the greater the compensation," he warned.

“We must remember that Jews, unlike the Palestinians, did not threaten the existence of their homelands or anyone else,” Orbach wrote. “They did not declare war on Iraq, Yemen, or Egypt. They left with nothing because of pressure and danger. They must go on demanding their rights, not as a way to prevent or encourage a diplomatic agreement, but because it is a matter of justice.”

Just  two months before his death, Orbach was embroiled in a controversy over the appearance of singer Amir Benayoun at a ceremony held at the President's residence to mark the first ever Day of Remembrance for Jewish refugees from Arab countries. President Rivlin cancelled Benayoun's appearance over a song he had written which Rivlin esteemed was racist towards Arabs. Orbach, said that he would cancel his own appearance at the upcoming event out of deference for Benayoun's rights.

"The cancellation of singer Amir Benayoun's concert at the President's house, marking the expulsion of Jews from Arab Lands and Iran, contradicts our position," Orbach stated. Orbach added that while he respected Rivlin, he viewed the cancellation as an infringement on freedom of expression.

Sidon synagogue houses destitute Palestinians

This AFP story has been popping up all over the media, but it's not the first time that the Sidon synagogue has been written about. The piece perpetuates the false narrative that the synagogue - and the Jewish community - were victims of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, whereas the Jewish quarter was most likely abandoned and Palestinian refugees moved in as early as 1948.

In an alleyway in the Old City of Lebanon's southern city of Sidon, a run-down synagogue that once served a vibrant Jewish community now houses destitute Syrian and Palestinian families.

There are only a handful of signs that the building -- abandoned as Lebanon's Jews fled the country in the last decades -- was once a house of worship.

The sun shining on the blue paint peeling from its walls enters through a skylight adorned with wrought-iron stars of David.

An alleyway leading to a run-down Jewish synagogue  in Lebanon's southern city of Sidon (Photo: ©Joseph Eid /AFP)

The remains of a large mural in red and gold decorate the interior, though its Hebrew letters have been painted over.

For decades the building in the heart of Sidon's Jewish quarter was central to the city's Jewish community, which dated to the Roman era.

But for the last 25 years, Syrian Jihad al-Mohammed has known it simply as home.

"In 1990, the place was abandoned and infested with rats," he told AFP. "I cleaned it up and I moved in."

Mohammed, who moved to Lebanon for work, lives in the building with his six children, wife and mother -- one of five Palestinian and Syrian families who have made their homes in the unlikely setting.

Built in 1850, the synagogue still technically belongs to the Jewish community, but has played host to numerous other residents since the 1982 departure of Sidon's last Jewish family, the Levys.

During Israel's invasion of Lebanon, Israeli soldiers took up positions in the synagogue, and later Syrian intelligence forces set up inside the building.

"It was a house of worship, but for me it's just a house like any other. I'm just a tenant," Mohammed said.

The Syrian's home is set up in the part of the synagogue where men once prayed and includes a kitchen, a small bathroom, two bedrooms and a living room with a television.

On the walls, Hebrew renderings of the Book of Genesis and Jewish laws have been daubed over with red paint.

But while little remains of the synagogue's former life, its past has not been forgotten.

"I've received visitors from Canada, France and Brazil who showed me photos of their (Jewish Lebanese) ancestors from Sidon," said Mohammed.

In 2012, two rabbis from Neturei Karta -- a group of anti-Zionist Jews who believe that the state of Israel should not exist -- prayed in the synagogue, much to the surprise of its residents.

It was the first prayer held in the building for 40 years, and came as part of a tour that also included a visit to the nearby tomb of Zebulon, one of the sons of the biblical patriarch Jacob.

Nagi Gergi Zeidan, a specialist on the Jews of Lebanon, says the synagogue once housed 50 Torah scrolls dating to the Roman era, which were seized by Israelis during their 1982 invasion.

For now, there is little chance the synagogue will return to its former purpose, though Mohammed said he would leave if asked.

"But I am attached to this place," he said.

Separated from him by a wall is his Palestinian neighbour Warda, who has lived for the past seven years with her children in the female prayer section of the synagogue.

She grew up in the neighbourhood with her parents, who were expelled from their land after Israel's creation in 1948.

"I remember playing with Jewish children and seeing Jewish women praying here on the wooden benches," she said, showing off the living room she has fashioned. (I doubt this is true - ed)

She recalled the kippa hats worn by the faithful, and the Sabbath, when she would turn on the lights for observant Jews who could not operate machinery during the day of rest.

"There was no tension. But when Israel invaded, they became afraid and they left. There is no one left."

Lebanon's Jewish population has dwindled from 7,000 in 1967 to just 35 in 2006, according to Zeidan's research.

In Sidon, where there are still buildings bearing the names of Jewish families like Nigri, Hadid and Balanciano, the community numbered more than 1,000 in 1956, but had disappeared completely by 1985.

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More about the synagogue and Jews of Sidon

Yemenite author wins literary prize

A prestigious literary prize has been awarded to the Yemenite Israeli author Ayelet Tsabari. While Tsabari is to be applauded for trying to change the Eurocentric character of Israeli history, her work should not be seen (as hailed by Sigal Samuel in the Forward),  as a victory for 'Arab Jews': most Jews from Arab countries would reject the expression.

Ayelet Tsabari, author of The Best Place on Earth: Stories, has been named the winner of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. The $100,000 prize, which is one of the most generous literary awards, alternates between fiction and non-fiction yearly (last year’s nonfiction winner was Matti Friedman for his book The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible). Kenneth Bonert, author of The Lion Seeker: A Novel, was named this year’s runner-up and will be awarded $25,000.

In Tsabari’s debut story collection, she explores Israeli history through characters of Mizrahi background—Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent—who are at the crossroads of nationalities, religions, and communities.

“I grew up not seeing myself and my family in literature, so writing The Best Place on Earth was a way to create the characters that were missing from my childhood stories,” Tsabari said in a statement. “By portraying characters of Mizrahi background I was hoping to complicate readers’ perceptions of Israel and Jewishness, and to expand and broaden their ideas of what a Jewish story and Jewish experience can be.”

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The Forward article

Times of Israel

The Adenite couple behind the Esther cinema

 The Esther cinema, now a boutique hotel on Dizengoff Circle in Tel Aviv

What does a boutique hotel built in Bauhaus style in central Tel Aviv have to do with the old British protectorate of Aden?

The link between the two is a remarkable couple, Esther and Moses Nathaniel. Both were born in Aden, at the tip of Yemen, when the port was an outpost of the British empire. They packed their bags in 1924 and arrived in the burgeoning city of Tel Aviv. They built the Dizengoff cinema, as it was originally known, in 1930.  It was designed by the Ukraine-born architect Yehuda Magidovich and renamed the Esther Cinema in 1931.

The marriage of Esther and Moses was a love match opposed by their families. Moses was from a poor family, self-taught. But he became an independent, successful businessman and the managing director of a commercial giant, 'Menachem Moshe'.

The company brought him into contact with Esther's family. Esther was born to an affluent and influential Adenite family whose members were leaders of the community for 150 years. According to an explanation in the hotel foyer, "Esther was the senior grandchild who knew how to take privileges unheard of in her generation and use them to her advantage." She studied in a missionary school, invited private tutors to teach her and opened bank accounts in Paris and Tel Aviv.

Esther and Moses met at the company offices and held a secret love affair for six years. Before they moved to Israel as a married couple, their courtship was conducted through coded love letters and hasty meetings.

When the couple died, the Esther cinema passed to their grandson, Dani Goldsmith. It was converted into an hotel, but the main staircase and foyer recall its past purpose and display a massive film projector and old film canisters. Guests can see classic film clips projected in the reception area.

Iranian guards restore stolen scroll

Cynics will say that this story from the official Fars News Agency, of the recovery of a Torah scroll by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, is part of the regime's charm offensive towards the US and its partners as it negotiates a nuclear deal with Iran. The Jerusalem Post reports:

 A sefer torah in a synagogue in Tehran. The photo was taken in 2013 (Photo: AFP)

An ancient Torah scroll that was recently stolen from a synagogue in southern Iran was reportedly located and returned to the Jewish community by members of a volunteer paramilitary group in the country, local media reported Sunday.

According to Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, a number of valuable manuscripts went missing this month from a synagogue in the southwestern city of Shiraz.

Forces belonging to the Islamic Republic’s Basij militia, which operates under the Revolutionary Guard Corps, allegedly recovered one Torah scroll and returned it to the local Jewish community, Fars reported.

Iran has been home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. Current estimates put the population of Jews in the Islamic Republic between 8,000-25,000.

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Iranian Jews do not need to attend school on Sabbath

Let the Sunday people into the USA

 Abraham Miller barely conceals his indignation in The Blaze at the US administration as he pleads for it to give asylum to Christians fleeing the Middle East, who do not qualify for resettlement. The Christians are following the Jews out of Egypt, but Israel took in the Jews of the Islamic world without a penny of international assistance.

In October 2011, violent clashes occurred in Cairo between Coptic Christians and Muslims, a direct result of the Muslim-dominated government brought to power with the assent of the administration of President Barack Obama.

My friend, the late Joseph Wahed, whose family’s roots went back a thousand years in the city and whose entire family was thrown out in a single night in 1952, watched the conflagrations in Cairo’s streets and remembered the prophecy of his Coptic neighbor. As Wahed’s family was being banished from the only homeland they knew, his neighbor uttered an old Muslim proverb, “After Saturday comes Sunday.”

He was reflecting on the future of his fellow Coptic Christians, for the proverb was widely taken to mean that first Islam will get rid of the Jews and then the Christians. Wahed was so moved by this memory that he penned a letter about it that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Oct. 17, 2011.

But this was not the only part of that experience that stirred Wahed. He was upset by a statement in the Journal’s coverage of the clashes, which felt a need to issue the obligatory apologia for Islamic culture:

“Egyptians have long prided themselves on a shared sense of citizenship that straddles religious boundaries.”

Of course, this is politically correct nonsense. Egyptian law prevented Jews and some Christians from acquiring citizenship. Dhimmi, the Islamic imposition of de jure second class citizenship on non-Muslims, was part of Egyptian law into the 1920s. Christians, watching the mass exile of Jews from Islamic countries, wondered when the inevitable Sunday following Saturday would make it their turn.

And so it has happened in more ways than one.

Egyptian Coptic Christians in orange jumpsuits being led along a beach, each accompanied by a masked Islamic State militant. Egypt is making an ambitious bid to place itself at the center of the fight against extremism across the Middle East. Beyond fighting militants in its own Sinai Peninsula, it is trying to organize an international coalition against the Islamic State in Libya and helping Saudi Arabia defend its borders.(Photo: AP , File)

As the world ignored the mass expulsion of Jews from the Islamic world, it is also ignoring the reality of what is happening to Christians. It was tiny Israel, barely born, that took in the Jews of the Islamic world. There was not a penny of international assistance from the United Nations, the mainstream Protestant Churches that now advocate boycotting Israel, or anyone in the international community. Israel took in these refugees even when there was not enough food in the country to feed everyone three meals a day.

Who will take in the Christians? Who will stand up and acknowledge their plight? Certainly not President Barack Obama! He is incapable of mouthing the word, “Christian,” to acknowledge those who are the latest victims of Islamic State in Libya.

Twenty-one Christians are simultaneously, wantonly, and graphically beheaded and the so-called leader of the free world can no more acknowledge that these people are killed for their beliefs as Christians than he can acknowledge that their murderers are Muslim terrorists—no more than he can acknowledge that the people slaughtered in a French kosher deli were Jews.

But if that were not sufficient to spark outrage, Christians that are victims of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq do not qualify for resettlement in America, as do Muslims.

The Department of State is adhering strictly to a rule that only refugees in refugee camps qualify for resettlement. Christians stay away from refugee camps as they are dominated by Muslim refugees and have Islamic State collaborators in them. The president who has a cell phone, a pen, and an ability to trample the Constitution when it comes to admitting illegal immigrants has no tools at his disposal for helping Christians fleeing Islamic State. The Christians are seeking safe haven, not economic advancement.

There are no Jewish refugees in Iraq or Syria. They were expelled more than half a century ago. Their expulsion was indeed a harbinger of things to come, and the manner in which the world chose to ignore their plight was also a portent of what would befall the Sunday people.

The president will take no action on their behalf. The mainstream liberal churches are too busy trying to boycott Israel to be concerned with their Christian brethren. The campuses are too consumed with destroying capitalism and apologizing for Islam to take notice.

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Last harassed Jews trapped by poverty

 This article in the Yemen Times is blunt about the harassment faced by the remaining few Jews of Yemen. It highlights a key reason why Jews in the north, at Raida in Amram province, can't leave: they cannot sell their assets. Yahya Yaqoub says that his Muslim neighbours claim they own his house, although he has the deeds to prove otherwise. (With thanks: Eliyahu)

 Jews hide their sidelocks to avoid harassment (Photo: skynewsarabia.com)

As security continues to deteriorate in Yemen, many of the country’s remaining Jews may once again entertain the thought of leaving and resettling in safer countries.

On Jan. 21, Robin and Ishaq, two Yemeni Jews living in Sana’a, were beaten while buying groceries in the Old City, according to Yousef Habib, one of the few remaining Jewish rabbis left in the city. The attackers were allegedly popular committee members of the Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah.

“They were approached near Bab Al-Yemen as they were leaving the city by two men, who noticed them because of their Payot,” said Habib. Payot are long twisted locks of hair worn by observant Jewish men of all backgrounds. “The two men stopped them and ordered that they praise the prophet Muhammad, however the two refused. As a result they were then publically beaten, and had their possessions confiscated.”

It wasn’t the first time Jews in Sana’a had experienced such attacks. In 2012, Aaron Zindani, a Yemeni Jew living in Sana’a, was stabbed to death at a local market while with his children.

Although being Jewish in Yemen has long posed problems for the country’s small community, Habib says those who remain have become increasingly fearful since the Houthi takeover of Sana’a and other parts of the country in recent months. “Most of Yemen’s Jews live in Sana’a and Amran, both areas now firmly under the control of Ansar Allah,” he said. “Many of us are thinking of leaving and going to Israel, like others have done previously.”

Fadl Abu Taleb, a member of the Houthi Political Office in Sana’a, denied the Houthis had anything to do with the attack, and asserted under Houthi control Jews in Yemen would be able to live and operate freely as any other Yemeni citizen. “Our problems are with Zionism and the occupation of Palestine,” he said. “But Jews here have nothing to fear.”

Despite insistence by Houthi leaders that the movement is not sectarian, Habib says many Jews are terrified by the movement’s slogan, which reads: “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, damn the Jews, victory for Islam.”

“Many of us are originally from Sa’ada [governorate], the traditional homeland of the Houthis, and we know them all to well,” he said. “Many of us came to Sana’a fleeing Ansar Allah, now it’s like they’ve followed us here.”

Forty-six of Yemen’s Jews live in Tourist City, a walled compound housing foreign aid workers, diplomats and others working in the oil sectors located near the US embassy in Sana’a’s Sawan district. Another 48 live near Raida city in Amran governorate. Most choose to remain isolated, avoiding going out in public for fear of harassment and discrimination by their Muslim neighbors.

Most of those in Tourist City are former residents of Sa’ada, and are recent arrivals in Sana’a, having fled the violence that resulted from the government’s various wars and campaign against the Houthis between 2004 and 2010. “My house in Sa’ada was bombed by government forces in 2006, so I came here,” said Habib.

Haboub Salem Mousa, 36, also lives in Tourist City and migrated along with Habib and others from Sa’ada in 2006. According to him, he and other Jews were not just fleeing the fallout of war, but also the active discrimination they faced from the Houthis. “Houthis pursued us everywhere we went,” he said. “Attacks and even forced conversions were common in that time.” Various news reports from 2010 confirm the type of treatment Jews received at the hands of the Houthis. In 2009, the US State Department evacuated 100 Yemeni Jews to the United States where they were granted refugee status.

“It was a very traumatizing experience,” said Mousa, describing his experience fleeing to Sana’a. “Even after arriving here [Sana’a] we didn’t feel safe mixing with the local population. The government lets us live in Tourist city, away from prying eyes.”

Beginning in 2009, the Jews of Tourist City were provided monthly stipends by Yemen’s government including rations of oil, sugar and other basic goods, a program that was temporarily put on hold for eight months in 2012 because of the economic crisis the country faced following Yemen’s 2011 uprising. The aid has now since resumed.

In order to avoid harassment in the instances where he does leave the compound, Mousa has shaved his side-locks, a tradition observed by pious Jewish men of all backgrounds. “When I first arrived in Sana’a, I still had my locks,” he said. “However, people recognized me as a Jew right away, and would shout and harass me in the street,” he added. “So I decided to get rid of them. I’m not happy about it, but it was necessary.”

Despite the hardships he faces, Mousa says he does not intend on leaving Yemen, and will remain here the rest of his life. “Most of us [Yemeni Jews] have left, but I won’t. This is my country, I’ll die here.”

According to Al-Yahoodi Al-Hali (the Nice Jew), written by Ali Al-Muqri, a popular Yemeni scholar and author from Taiz, Yemen’s Jewish population at one point numbered almost 50,000. “Many Yemeni Jews lived in various regions in the country’s north and south, including Sana’a, Aden, and Tarim, however many traveled to Israel following the 1948 United Nations partition plan,” the book reads. (...)

Approximately 48 other Jews live in the village of Bayt Harash, just outside Raida city, the capital of Raida district in Yemen’s Amran governorate. Yahya Yaqoub is a Hebrew teacher and father of four who teaches at a private Jewish school in Bayt Harash. He claims that in his village Jews face similar discrimination as is witnessed by those in Sana’a and Sa’ada. “I haven’t cut off my locks, however I hide them underneath my Imamah [Yemeni headscarf] whenever I go outside,” he said. “If I don’t, people might identify me as a Jew. If that happens, who knows, anything could happen.”

Several years ago the school had about 20 students, he said. Now that number has dropped to seven, as the number of Jews living and working in the area has dropped due to people fleeing the country. Parents of the students avoid sending them to public schools he says, for fear of the harassment they would face from students and staff.

“Legally, Jews are treated as equals by the state and in state institutions such as schools,” he said. “But in practice, Jewish children who go to public schools are often forced to learn the Quran and face harassment from teachers, especially those teaching religion, Islamic culture, and similar subjects.”

Two of Yaqoub’s children left to study in the US and Israel he said, but he currently remains in the village with his wife and ten-year old son, also named Yaqoub. Yaqoub says he would like to immigrate to Israel or the US to meet up with his sons but cannot afford it. Three houses in Bayt Harash belonging to family members who left are currently in his possession he says, and if he could sell them he may be able to gather up enough money to leave.

However he claims he has faced resistance from Muslim neighbors, who claim the houses belong to them, despite the fact that Yaqoub claims he possesses documentation proving his ownership.

Many Yemeni Jews are unemployed, and, due to security concerns, find it difficult to practice their traditional trade as goldsmiths, jewelers and dagger forgers. As a result, the already small community has continued decreasing. On Aug. 15, 2013, 20 Yemeni Jews were smuggled into Israel by the Jewish Agency and Yemeni middlemen. Thirty five others reportedly were also evacuated from the country during the same year. The Yemen Times contacted the Jewish Agency, but was refused any comment.

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Jews do not need to attend Sabbath school

Thanks to the government of President Hassan Rouhani, as of Feb. 4, Jewish students officially no longer have to attend school on the Sabbath. This, says Meir Javedanfar in al-Monitor, is an important step by the Rouhani administration to welcome Iranian Jews. Or could it be a cynical PR move to show how 'moderate' the regime is as it negotiates a nuclear deal with the West?
 

Memorial financed by the Iranian government to Jewish soldiers who fell in the Iran-Iraq war. (Photo: Getty Images)

There are numerous reasons why my family left Iran in 1987, but an important one was the decision by the Iranian government that year not to officially recognize the holy Sabbath as a religious day off for Jewish students. There was no choice: The Iranian school week ran from Saturday to Thursday so we either attended school on the Sabbath or we were failed and had to repeat the year.
Soon after the 1979 revolution, Jewish students were given Saturdays off as a day of rest. This was an unofficial decision, but one that was respected. This applied to all Jewish schools. Meanwhile, Jewish students attending Muslim schools in Iran could also ask to not attend schools on Saturdays, although some students chose to as they did not want to miss important classes. But it was up to them.

To add salt to the wound, once Jewish students were forced to attend school on the Sabbath, in some Jewish schools vocational training classes (referred to in Persian as Herf-e va Fan) were also moved to Saturdays. So not only were Jewish students forced to sin by turning up to school on the Sabbath, they were forced to sin even more, as such classes included activities using electronic equipment or carpentry, which are also banned on the Sabbath. This made the experience of attending school on the Sabbath even more painful, and in some cases humiliating, for Jewish students.

This new development to recognize Sabbath comes on the heels of other positive and respectful steps taken by the Rouhani administration toward Iran’s Jewish community, which according to the 2006 census numbered around 9,252. It is believed that their numbers have decreased since then, due to emigration.

Another important step was taken in December 2014 by the Rouhani government when a memorial honoring Iran's fallen Jewish soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war was unveiled.

This is in addition to $400,000 donated by the Rouhani government to Tehran’s sole Jewish charity hospital in February 2014.

Much like politics in Iran, views and policies relating to Iran's Jewish community are full of paradoxes and contradictions. One of the more interesting paradoxes relates to Ali Younessi, Rouhani's special assistant on issues regarding religious minorities. Younessi has been the point man behind Rouhani's positive outreach to Iran's Jewish community. This is the same Younessi who was in charge of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence when it accused 13 Jews of spying for Israel — charges that were thought of as being highly dubious. Today, Younessi is even visiting synagogues and unveiling memorials to Iran's fallen Jewish martyrs in the Iran-Iraq war.

One of the more depressing paradoxes is that while Rouhani’s government tries to show respect to Iran’s millennia-old Jewish community, parts of the regime are doing the opposite by planning to hold a new Holocaust denial cartoon competition in Tehran.

This will be the second Holocaust denial cartoon competition. The first one was held in December 2006, soon after then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a myth. Unfortunately, Ahmadinejad is not the only person to make such a reference to the Holocaust. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made a similar statement in February of the same year.

As for the person who encouraged former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to force Jewish students to attend school, it turns out that this was Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Mohtashami-Pur, Iran's former ambassador to Syria in the early 1980s and one of the Iranian founders of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah.

In an interview with the Tehran-based Entekhab News on June 4, 2012, Mohtashami-Pur recalled how he told the minister of education that “he has no right” to officially declare the Sabbath as a day off for Jewish students. “Whenever in the US or Europe they allow Friday to be a holiday for the sake of Muslim children, then we'll do this for Jews,” he said.

In the same interview, he then goes on to state that because of the pressure applied by Jewish representatives to officially declare Saturdays as a holiday for Jewish students, he wrote a letter to the late Khomeini, after which the supreme leader “resolutely stated never” — meaning no to officially recognizing the Sabbath as a day of rest for Jewish students.

In a strange twist of fate in 2009, in the very same Syria where Mohtashami-Pur helped establish Hezbollah, one of the great success stories of the export of the Iranian revolution, Mohtashami-Pur was threatened by Ahmadinejad supporters, because of his support for Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

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Persecution defines Raida remnant

The New York Times has followed Reuters with a story and eight photographs about Yemen's beleaguered remnant under the Houthis, this time shifting the focus from the Sana'a compound of 45 Jews to the northern region of Raida. In contrast to the Reuters figure of 26, the article by Rod Nordland puts the figure  of Jews in Raida at 55, mostly belonging to the Jacob clan. All are desperate to leave, preferably for the US, where at least 60 Jews have been resettled in recent years.

Children from the Jacob clan in Raida: desperate to leave Yemen (photo: Tyler Hicks/NYT)

In Raida, Abraham Jacob shrugged off his neighbors’ anti-Semitism, saying, “There are good people, and there are bad people.” But it is harder to overlook the Houthis’ slogan, which is chanted at all Houthi rallies, broadcast on television and painted on what seems like every blank wall space in areas they control.

“We know there are Houthi people who are understanding and tolerant, and we have not been harmed by any of them,” Mr. Jacob said. “But this cursing us to damnation is distressing and hurtful to us.”

“Honestly,” his brother Suleiman said, “we are a little afraid of the Houthi takeover and don’t know what to do about it.”

Their family’s choice would be to emigrate to the United States, rather than Israel, Suleiman said, “because America is quieter, and we’ve had enough problems already.”

Despite the embassy closings, he said he remained hopeful that his son Jacob, who will turn 13 late this year, can celebrate his bar mitzvah outside Yemen. The boy has already been memorizing the Hebrew verses that he will have to chant for the occasion. “He is my best Hebrew student,” Suleiman said.

The neighborhood still has young children and their parents, as well as elderly people, but there are few single adults of marriageable age. Most have emigrated. The last wedding took place two years ago, Abraham said. The newlyweds left Yemen and never came back.

“There isn’t a single one of us here who doesn’t want to leave,” Suleiman said. “Soon there will be no Jews in Yemen, inshallah,” he said, using the Arabic expression for “God willing.”

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Yemen Jews quietly slip out despite Houthi assurances

Jewish shrines neglected or islamised

A recent Facebook video from the shrine of Ezra the Scribe, some 400 kilometres south of Baghdad, has confirmed what many have suspected for some years: this tomb, that Jews have revered since Biblical times, has now been transformed into a mosque. Lyn Julius writes in Arutz Sheva:

Click here for Video
(with thanks: IraqiJews of Babylon)

During the period of the Second Temple (516 BCE - 70 CE) Ezra the Scribe led the Jewish exiles back to Jerusalem from Persia. He is either thought to have died in Jerusalem or in Uzair, near Basra.

Ezra's tomb was in Jewish hands until the mass exodus of 1950 - 51. Now, however, Koranic inscriptions and hadith hang on the walls and much green paint has been used to decorate the building.

But the video does show that Hebrew inscriptions still survive, namely psalms inscribed on marble or wooden plaques. These are typical of Jewish holy places in Iraq. They are shaped like lamps - the menorot of the Temple - and bear the ineffable four-letter name of God.

Peer through a window into the sarcophagus and you will see an inscription in Hebrew identifying it as the final resting place of Ezra the Scribe.

At least the shrine is still standing. Last week, Arutz Sheva quoted a report in the Arabic press that the 'Ezra synagogue' had been largely destroyed by a terrorist militia, raising fears that the shrine of Ezra the Scribe had been lost.

But the synagogue in question is thought to be located in the Shia Muslim city of Basra; the militia wants to make the synagogue its southern headquarters. Apparently quite a few sites - Muslim as well as Jewish - have been damaged or destroyed, but the authorities and media have been intimidated into silence by the terrorists.

Since the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group led a Sunni takeover of huge swathes of northern Iraq, the country has seen the establishment of dozens of Iranian-backed Shia Islamist militias - based largely in the Shia-dominated south - which are currently fighting alongside Iraqi government forces against ISIS. But these militias have also been accused of committing similar crimes against Sunni Muslims as ISIS has against Shias - and these latest reports seem to indicate it is abusing religious and historical sites similarly as well.

Neglect, destruction or Islamisation are the triple threats facing historic Jewish shrines in Iraq.

Since 2010, there has been concern that the shrine of Ezekiel at Al-Kifl south of Baghdad, the most important of Jewish holy sites in Iraq, was also being converted into a mosque, and Hebrew inscriptions were being painted over.
These reports turned out mostly false, but one visitor testified to the loudspeakers affixed to the outside to call the Muslim faithful to prayer.

No substantial renovation work has been done to the shrine since, as the religious authorities and the ministry of heritage wrangle over the future of the site. Meanwhile, the fabric of the building, already  in a state of disrepair, deteriorates further.

In the north of Iraq, the Jihadists of Islamic State have blown up the shrines of Jonah and Seth. There are also fears for the crumbling shrine of the prophet Nahum at Al-Kosh and the tomb of Daniel in Kirkuk - the latter of which was also reported destroyed by some sources last year.

All these sites used to attract hundreds, if not thousands of Jewish pilgrims in the heyday of the 150,000-strong, pre-1948 community. Now that there are only five Jews left in Iraq, it is difficult to see how  the inexorable process of de-Judaisation can be reversed.

Irina Bokova, director-general of UNESCO, has been sincere in her desire to protect Jewish and other heritage in the Middle East, but there is a limit to what the organisation can do when whole swathes of Syria and Iraq have fallen under the iconoclastic control of Islamic State.

Read article in full

Actor Roger Hanin buried in native Algiers

 What makes an Algerian-born Jew, who has lived most of his life in France, wish to be buried in a Jew-free country from which Jews had been expelled?  Roger Hanin, a famous TV actor and star of the film Le coup de Sirocco, had his last wish fulfilled when he was buried on Friday with full honours at the St-Eugene Jewish cemetery in Algiers. His body will lie near his father's. Le Parisien reports:

Some 20 friends and relatives, including his daughter and the film-maker Alexandre Arcady, who was also born in Algiers, joined the Algerian minister of culture Nadia Labidi, the French ambassador to Algeria Bernard Emie and the Wali, Abdelkader Zoukh. The coffin was received by a guard of honour at the gates of the Saint-Eugène cemetery. The cemetery was renamed Bologhine following independence, after the founder of Algiers in the 10th century.

 Roger Hanin's   decision to choose Algiers as his last resting place is the "expression of his attachment to his native land; many Jews feel a similar attachment to Algeria and a deep sense of familial belonging", the CRIF president Joel Mergui explained. The Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika paid homage to the actor, "a symbol of the friendship between the Algerian and French peoples."

Read article in full  

Moustaki will not be buried in Alexandria

Copenhagen victim was another Tunisian Jew

With thanks: Michelle

The Islamist terror attack on the Copenhagen synagogue has claimed the life of another Tunisian Jew.

Dan Uzan, 37, (pictured) was an unarmed volunteer guarding the entrance to the Copenhagen synagogue during a Batmitzvah party with 80 guests. He was shot in the head by a gunman who had just murdered Finn Noergaard, a film director attending a meeting called to discuss freedom of expression.

Uzan's murder brings to seven the number of Tunisian Jews 'randomly' gunned down in Islamist attacks in Denmark and France. Four Tunisian Jews died in the Hyper Cacher siege in January. Another two Jews murdered in the Charlie Hebdo shootings also happened to be originally from Tunisia.

Uzan went to the Jewish school in Copenhagen and held a Master's degree in Economics from his city's university. He was also a keen basketball player.

Post in Harissa blog (French)

Yemen Jews quietly slip out despite Houthi assurances

Yemenite Jewish boys study in Raida, northern Yemen. The photo was taken in 2009. Now only 26 remain (Photo: Reuters)

 Seventy-one Jews are are all that remain of Yemen's ancient Jewish community, and they too may soon flee after a Shi'ite Muslim militia seized power in the strife-torn country this month."Individuals will have to make their own decisions",  an Israeli immigration official tells Reuters: 

Harassment by the Houthi movement - whose motto is "Death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam" - caused Jews in recent years to largely quit the northern highlands they shared with Yemen's Shi'ites for millennia.

But political feuds in which the Jews played no part escalated last September into an armed Houthi plunge into the capital Sanaa, the community's main refuge from which some now contemplate a final exodus.

Around six Yemeni Jews from the same family arrived in Israel on Friday, members of the community told Reuters.

"Since last September, our movements have become very limited for fear of the security situation, and there are some members of the community who preferred to leave Yemen," sighed chief rabbi Yahya Youssef, sitting in his apartment within a walled compound next to ministry of defense.

Dressed in the traditional Yemeni flowing robe, blazer and headwrap, Rabbi Yahya's lined face is framed by two long curls on each side. Along with Hebrew he and his co-religionists speak Arabic, value local customs and are wary of life beyond home.

"We don't want to leave. If we wanted to, we would have done so a long time ago," Yahya said as his infirmed old father rested in the sun outside their home.

Jews evacuated from the Houthi stronghold of Saada province in 2009 to the government-guarded compound have dwindled from 76 to 45. A group of 26 others live in a city north of the capital. (...)


The local Houthi official now responsible for the surrounding neighborhood visited Rabbi Yahya on Thursday to offer reassurances, according to a Reuters correspondent who was present.

"Jews are safe and no harm will come to them," said Abu al-Fadl, who like other leaders in the movement goes by a nom de guerre and not his given name.

"The problem of the Houthis is not with the Jews of Yemen but with Israel, which occupies Palestine," he added.

But memories of death threats and Houthi fighters burning down Jewish homes during the militia's decade of on-off war with the now nonexistent Sanaa government will not be soon forgotten.
Israel-linked organizations have in the past repeatedly helped whisk Jews out of Yemen, but Israeli government spokespeople declined comment on the matter, citing reluctance to endanger Yemen's Jews by association with Israel.

"There are certainly discussions going on over options available regarding the Yemenite Jews," said an Israeli official briefed on immigration matters.

But these are individuals who will have to make their own individual decisions about what to do," the official added.

Read article in full 

Female education may end Djerban Jewish life

While  other Tunisian cities have been losing their Jews, Djerba has maintained its Jewish population at about 1, 000. The reason, argues Lucette Lagnado, is the high fertility rate among the orthodox Jewish women of the island. But a bid to improve female education may soon end all that. Feature article in the Wall St Journal (with thanks: Lily; Dan):

Over the longer term, the greatest threat to Djerba’s Jews may come, not from without, but from within. Jews have lived on this storied island for centuries and, some believe, since Biblical times. Ancient traditions guide every aspect of Djerban Jewish life, but modernity is slowly encroaching. Laptops, iPhones and TV sets are ubiquitous.

Perhaps the biggest question mark revolves around the role of women in society. Largely absent from the workforce, Djerba’s Jewish women generally are expected to lead traditional lives tending to husbands and families.

The result has been an off-the-charts birth rate. Women here bear an average of four to five children, according to local leaders. Some have 10 or 12. That has contributed to a virtual population explosion in recent decades, with roughly 50% of the population 20 years of age or younger, according to local leaders.

In Tunis, by contrast, only 300-400 Jews remain—down from tens of thousands. Many of them are elderly and frail.

Youssef Wazan, the president of the community, argues that Djerban Jews have done better than other Arab Jews precisely because they have fought against the lure of modern times—including assimilation and the changing role of women.

“Listen, the Jews in Tunisia, they had their freedoms…and they all left,” he says. “Our synagogues are full every day and on the Sabbath, we don’t work—nothing. If you look at France you don’t see that even on Yom Kippur. That is why we don’t want modernity.”

And yet, at the fringes of society and in subtle ways, Djerban women are evolving. Two agents of change are cousins Alite and Hanna Sabban, who have fought to bring greater educational opportunities to the girls of Djerba.

They are far from radical. Married to two brothers, Hanna, 34 years old, has four children, while Alite, 33, has seven. Neither has an advanced education. Both are deeply observant, and embrace the importance of religion and the traditional role of Djerban Jewish women as wives and mothers. But they are also critical of their culture’s failings with respect to women and feel that even within the confines of Djerba’s conservative beliefs, there is much room to evolve.

Educating girls hasn’t been a high priority in Djerba’s Jewish community. Historically, in fact, they weren’t educated at all, and most were illiterate until well into the 20th century.

For boys, an education, at least a religious one, has always been a key part of life on Djerba. They study Hebrew and the Torah from morning to night, in classes taught by rabbis. That education was formalized with the establishment in the 1960s of modern-day religious schools known as “Yeshivot.”
But women’s education didn’t exist. In the early 1950s, resident David Kidouchim started a part-time school for girls teaching them to read and write in Hebrew. Though it was only two hours a day, his school was seen as transformational, and he became a local hero.

To the Sabban women, it is no longer enough. “When a girl goes to school for two hours, what can she do?” Alite asks. “We wanted more studies, we wanted for the girls to develop academically.”
They speak from personal experience. Growing up, Hanna was the luckier one. Her parents allowed her to attend the Arab public lycée outside of the main Jewish quarter, so she received more of a secular, full-time education. But she left at 14, she says, before she could get the prized baccalaureate. The two women bonded because of shared frustrations and a sense that life for a Jewish girl could be better—even within the confines of faith and tradition.

Read article in full

 
Hanna Sabban and her sister-in-law Alite Sabban stand in the middle of an abandoned house they recently purchased in hopes of establishing Djerba’s first full-time school for girls. (Photo: Danielle Zalcman, WSJ)

Ezra synagogue seized in Amara

 The tomb of Ezra at Uzair near the seized synagogue is still under the control of the Shi'a Endowment

Iraqi terrorists have seized and largely destroyed an important synagogue  in the province of Amara (320 km south of Baghdad), Al Araby has reported (via Elder of Ziyon.)

The synagogue is not identifiable, but it appears not to be the shrine of Ezra the Scribe at Uzair. This holy site remains under the control of the Shi'ite Endowment, the news medium reports.

 A source told Al-Araby that armed militias seized the synagogue, which is near the Church of Sorrows, and cut off all the streets leading to it. They prevented journalists from filming or writing any reports on it .The militia destroyed the bulk of the site, intending to make the site its general headquarters  in southern Iraq.

According to an  Iraqi 'Jew', the takeover by terrorist outlaws of the synagogue is not new; he was forced to leave his hometown  after receiving direct threats to his life if he leaked the issue to the media.

The 'Jew', who declined to be identified, criticised the Iraqi authorities for their silence in the face of violations against Muslim and other religious sites and suggested an appeal to the international community and the United Nations.

Read article in full (Arabic)

A sheep in Woolf's clothing?

For a man who is married to Marguerite, an Iraqi Jew, British Jewish judge Lord Woolf shows a disappointingly feckless grasp of Islamic extremism. He of all people should not be buying into the myth of peaceful coexistence between Muslims, Christians and Jews, argues Douglas Murray in The Spectator, awarding him the Simon Hughes prize for supineness (with thanks: Lily):

In the midst of all this self-denigration and theological presumption the good Lord was kind enough to describe the attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris as ‘horrendous’.  For which we must be grateful.  But according to the Times he also said:

‘The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion and to manifest such beliefs was part of the Human Rights Act 1998 but such rights must be exercised ‘in a way which respects the sensitivities and needs of other individuals, groups or society as a whole.

‘In other words, they should be exercised reasonably and in a manner that does not impinge disproportionately on the rights of others.’

The Islamic Centre and Woolf Institute, of which he is patron, were both bodies that could help by making it clear that ‘such attacks are a betrayal of Islam and foreign to its true belief’.

I suppose it may come as a surprise to Lord Woolf to learn that they are no such thing.  One might wish they were.  An ignorant person might think they were.  But Lord Woolf cannot possibly be such an ignorant man.  And in any case why is he telling people what Islam is or isn’t?  Isn’t it enough that we already have a Prime Minister and US President who think it part of their role to interpret Islam for the rest of us poor semi-literate mortals?  If you thought it couldn’t get worse, it did, as Lord Woolf said that:

‘For over 1000 years, Jews and Christians lived safely in Arab countries contributing to the wellbeing of all.

‘Insha’Allah that with the support of all those of goodwill we see the same situation once again in the West as well as in the Middle East.’

Why not mention all those times when Jews and Christians didn’t live ‘safely in Arab countries’?  Why not talk about the fact that Jews have had to flee most Arab countries and that Christians are in the process of doing so even as the good Lord witters on, completing a process of ethnic and religious cleansing which began in the days of Mohammed?  And ‘Insha’Allah’.  Really?  Does Lord Woolf – a Jewish British judge – really need ‘Allah’ to will anything?

I had thought that the supine man after whom the Simon Hughes award is named (a gay or possibly bisexual Liberal Democrat Catholic) could never be beaten to his own prize.  But Lord Woolf’s effort suggests that next year’s awards might have to be renamed. The Woolf in sheep’s clothing award?

Read article in full

How do Jews survive in Muslim lands?

 Uriel Hellman's article in B'nai B'rith Magazine dates back to 2011, but it is still relevant to the few thousand Jews still in Arab and Muslim countries today. How do they perform their delicate balancing act of survival as Jews, and why don't they leave?

 Roger Bismuth: changed his tone

When an American Jewish journalist visiting Tunisia in 2007 asked the leader of the local Jewish community how things were going for the nation's 1,500 Jews, the man offered an upbeat picture. 

Jews were free to come and go as they pleased, Roger Bismuth said, and they lived in relative safety. The North African country, which is 98 percent Muslim, even welcomed Israeli tourists, he noted. 

Bismuth reserved his highest praise for the country's autocratic president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who had been in office since seizing power in a bloodless coup in 1987. The president, Bismuth noted, directed government funds to restore old synagogues and made sure the Jewish community was protected, particularly from the rising tide of Islamic extremism elsewhere in the Muslim world. 


"The president is good to us," Bismuth told the reporter, Larry Luxner of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA). "We are very careful. Our security is very tight, even if you don't see it." 

But after Ben Ali was ousted in a popular revolution in January of this year and denounced by his countrymen as a corrupt and nepotistic dictator, Bismuth abruptly changed his tone. 

"He was behaving like a crook," Bismuth said in January of Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia. "He and his family stole property from people and the state, and they destroyed everything they could put their hands on." 

The stark reversal was a sign of the delicate balancing act Jews who live in Arab and Muslim lands must practice to maintain their safety and way of life. In countries where autocratic regimes are the rule and Islamic anti-Semitism an omnipresent threat, the Jews' well-being depends on a good relationship with those at the helm of power. 

A popular saying among French Moroccan Jews captures this sentiment. "Which party are you for - this one or that one?" goes the adage. The reply: "Nous sommes avec les gagnants - We are with the victors." 

A revolution, a new king, a war in Israel that stirs political passions-any of these can presage a sudden and dramatic turn for the worse. 

"They always, always are wondering what will happen the next day," said Norman Stillman, author of "The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times" and director of the Judaic Studies Program at the University of Oklahoma. 

Indeed, in Tunisia it took less than a month for popular anger against the regime to spill over into anti-Jewish violence. On Jan. 31, arsonists set a synagogue in Tunisia's southern Gabes region ablaze, burning the Torah scrolls. A Jewish community leader criticized the police for not stopping the attack. 

"I was in Morocco in 1971 when there was a coup attempt against King Hassan II. I remember everybody sitting by the radio waiting for the news," recalled Stillman of his Jewish family in Morocco. "Everybody was ready if they were able to get their bags packed and get out." 

The insurrection was put down and the king survived, and many Jews took to the streets to celebrate. 

Read article in full

Seventy years of Jewish education

With thanks: Michelle Malca

Nicolas Sarkozy, the then French president, makes a speech following the terrorist attack on the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, France

Western education arrived in the Jewish communities of the Arab and Muslim world with the establishment of the Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU). But the Alliance emphasised secular studies. The road to salvation for these Jews, it believed, was through cultural assimilation.

In 1944 the Ozar Hatorah schools network was set up to plug the gap. Its aim was to provide primary Jewish education, which it did later on for the Alliance Israelite schools.

Ozar Hatorah was first set up by a Syrian-born manufacturer living in New York - Isaac Shalom - together with Joseph Shamah of Israel and Ezra Tuebal of Buenos Aires. Later, the American Joint took over the funding of the network. After the creation of the state of Israel, Ozar Hatorah closed its 29 schools there and focused on Iran and the Arab countries.

Iran's Jewish community was in particular need of spiritual attention - the community was poor, knowledge was abysmal, and the religious leadership  decimated by the forced conversions of the 19th century. Forty schools were founded there, with 8,600 pupils. The Libyan schools closed with the mass migration of the community in 1951. In Syria, two schools in Damascus and Aleppo had 350 pupils in the early 1970s. The Damascus school was singled out for the best marks in the country. In Morocco, 60 percent of Jewish children attended Ozar Hatorah schools.

Ozar Hatorah followed the mass migration from North Africa into France from 1961. It set its sights on creating schools in North and South America.

The Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, France, was the scene of a terrorist attack in March 2013. Three children and a rabbi were killed.

From the Aryeh Kaplan reader

Ezra the Scribe shrine now a mosque

Post by Ahmed Saleh ALhasnawi.

With thanks: IraqiJews (of Babylon)

This recent video of the shrine of Ezra the Scribe ( Uzair) in Amara province was shot by Ahmed Saleh Alhasnawi.

 The shrine is unmistakeably a mosque, even though the local Shi'a have apparently no tradition of having revered it as a Muslim holy place.

Koranic inscriptions and hadith hang on the walls and much green paint has been used to decorate the building.

  But Hebrew inscriptions still survive, namely the large 'Yahweh' typical of Jewish holy places in Iraq. There are marble tablets in Hebrew built into the walls. Look through a window into the sarcophagus and you will see an inscription in Hebrew identifying it as the final resting place of Ezra the Scribe.

  Renovation to the brickwork also seems to be going on at the Yeshiva nearby. Repairs in 2000 are thought to have been paid for by the tiny Jewish community in Baghdad.
  David Ozair (now living in Israel) comments on the IraqiJews Facebook page that he is a descendant of Ezra the Scribe and that his family, who were settled in Babylon for 2,500 years, all speak fluent Arabic. He hopes one day to visit his ancestor's shrine.

A Jewish scholar teaches in Abu Dhabi

 It could have been the opportunity of a lifetime to demolish Arab misconceptions about Jews, but Mark R Cohen, to my mind, only manages to reinforce existing prejudices against Zionism, Israel and exaggerated notions of peaceful coexistence during his semester teaching at Abu Dhabi University. Here is an extract from his report in the Forward:

Apart from Emirati students, I met Muslims from such countries as Yemen, Jordan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Iraq. In response to an invitation from the Arab Cultural Group at NYUAD to lead a program for them, I screened the prizewinning documentary “Forget Baghdad.” The film, by Samir Jamal Aldin, an Iraqi Shiite living in Switzerland, features interviews in Israel with Iraqi-born Jews, like the famous writer Sami Michael, about their memories of Iraq and its once cosmopolitan capital. In the film, the Iraqi Jews speak nostalgically — in Arabic, not English or Hebrew — about their lives there before emigration in 1950 and 1951.

In late October, the filmmaker himself met for lunch with students and faculty at my invitation when he happened to be in town for the Abu Dhabi Film Festival. As we dined in the cafeteria, discussion got around to the tepid reception that “Forget Baghdad” met in Israel. My own suspicion is that the warm nostalgia for Iraq that the Iraqi-Israeli interviewees expressed and the complaints they voiced about their harsh life upon arrival in Israel offended Zionist sensibilities.

Samir shared a telling anecdote. When the film was finally shown in Israel, he was present at the screening. As the film ended and the lights went up, viewers in the audience of Arab-Jewish background jumped to their feet shouting at the Ashkenazim in the audience, “See what you people did to us!”

Jews in Islamic Life: Near East studies scholar Mark Cohen lectures on the Cairo Geniza to a male-only audience at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Women attending a different college campus were able to listen to the lecture by remote access. (Photo: Mark R Cohen)

Samir described himself as completely taken aback by this fierce reaction, unaware as he was of the longstanding hostility between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim in Israel.

The biggest surprise of my stay was to find myself teaching Arabs a noncredit course in Judeo-Arabic, the form of Arabic spoken and written (in Hebrew letters) by Jews in the Arab world down to modern times.

The course resulted from a conversation I had with a senior from Yemen. Back home, he had discovered and bought a book containing an Arabic transcription of a Judeo-Arabic travel account of Yemen, written in the 19th century. I volunteered to teach him the language. Word spread, and soon 11 students turned out for the class, most of them Arabs or non-Arab Muslims. They found Judeo-Arabic utterly fascinating. I had them learn the Hebrew alphabet, and, as a first text, I gave them two suras from the Quran, which I transcribed into Hebrew letters. I also showed them an image of a Geniza fragment of the Quran in Hebrew letters, from the 11th or 12th century.

One Muslim-Arab student was perplexed. Why, he asked, would Jews have wanted to read the Quran?

This gave me an opening to speak about Jewish-Muslim coexistence in the Middle Ages and about Jewish acculturation to Islamic-Arabic culture. Jews read the Quran, I said, because they recognized the similarity between Judaism and Islam. Writing in Arabic in the introduction to his prayer-book, the great 10th century rabbinic sage Saadia Gaon of Baghdad referred unselfconsciously to the Torah as “sharia” and even as “Quran”; to the direction of prayer toward Jerusalem as “qibla,” the Arabic term for facing Mecca, and to the hazan, or cantor, as the “imam.” Jews read the Quran, I added, despite a medieval Islamic prohibition against non-Muslims teaching their children the holy book of Islam.

At the end of the semester, the same Muslim student came to thank me for offering the course. “My aunt,” he told me candidly, “couldn’t understand why I was doing this. She said I was being a traitor.” I responded: “I understand your aunt’s feelings. Given what is happening today between Israel and Palestine, it’s hard to believe that there ever was a time when Jews and Muslims coexisted and shared similar cultural interests.”

This young Muslim’s exposure to Judeo-Arabic taught him otherwise.
The Geniza provided another platform for speaking about Jewish-Muslim coexistence in past times. In November, Amitav Ghosh, the celebrated Indian writer, and his wife, biographer Deborah Baker, visited NYUAD as writers in residence. I had been Ghosh’s historical consultant for his Geniza-based book, “In an Antique Land.” In Abu Dhabi we collaborated on a public program for the NYUAD Institute, where, in the presence of a sizable audience, we were interviewed about the Geniza and about his book.

Independently, I also gave a lecture on the Geniza to NYU alumni living in the Gulf. I showed the respective audiences an image of a Geniza merchant’s letter and talked about the importance of the Geniza for understanding that, for all their statutory legal inferiority, the Jews lived securely among Muslims, traded with them and experienced minimal discrimination most of the time.

In general the Muslim students I met at NYUAD — whether they were Emiratis, from another Arab country, from Pakistan, Bangladesh or Africa — were very curious about Jews, Judaism and Jewish-Muslim relations, while thirsting at the same time to be disassociated from the murderous Islamic extremism that plagues the world today. Some 30 students and faculty showed up at one event to which I was invited to speak about Jewish-Muslim relations. There, a Muslim student from Pakistan spoke passionately in defense of the true Islam, which, he said, has been distorted by groups like the Islamic State, or ISIS.

Another student at this gathering — an American, if I recall correctly — posed what he apologetically called an “aggressive” question about Israeli repression of Palestinians. He was probably surprised by my unapologetic response, in which I expressed my own critical view of the policies and actions of the Israeli government.

Read article in full:

Profile of 'excruciatingly-even-handed' Mark Cohen 

Bat Yeor refused a right of reply to Mark Cohen

How a Jew's beheading led to equal rights

This interesting article by Viviane Lesselbaum Scemama tells how the  Fundamental Pact of 1857, guaranteeing equal rights  for all the Tunisian Bey's subjects, arose out of the test case of a Jew called Batto Sfez. His beheading symbolised the degraded condition of dhimmis in North Africa before the western powers began to exert their influence. 

Coin issued by Mohammed Bey in 1857, the year of the Fundamental Pact

A Tunisian Jew named Batto Sfez was accused of being drunk,  insulting a Muslim and cursing the Islamic religion.

He was brought to justice under sharia law and sentenced to death.

Jews and Christians were outraged by the cruelty of this sentence. They appealed to the consular authorities to stop the execution and implore Mohammed Bey to show mercy.
 
A few days before the arrest of Batto Sfez, it should be recalled that the Bey had executed a Muslim soldier who had murdered a Jew. For good measure, it seems, the Bey ordered to enforce the same sentence on Batto, the slight difference being that Batto Sfez was not a murderer. He was beheaded on June 24, 1857.

This tragedy shook the Jewish community. It suffered its dhimmitude in silence: it had no right to the law. Faced with this travesty of justice the community was all more offended that the body was not restored to it. 
 
At the beginning of the Hebrew year 5772  (calendar year 2011) I reported to a friend, of Tunisian origin,  my research on the Batto Sfez case. She reminded me that Sfez was beheaded and his head was picked up by an unscrupulous Arab gang and used as a football.

The Jewish community strove to find a solution to recover the head of the unfortunate Sfez. It met  discreetly and decided to appease the baying crowd, empty its pockets of all hard cash, as well as boxes of "tzedakah" and deliver them to the Council which was planning to give a handful of cash to each of them. The secret was well kept. The headless body was already installed in a cart
converted into a hearse followed by a grieving crowd. This procession headed towards the Arabs who were enjoyed their macabre game. The funeral procession stopped . The coins were thrown at them. They let go of their prey and ran headlong to collect the manna. The stratagem succeeded. The Jews took back the head and buried it with dignity in the Jewish cemetery.

The incident may have been forgotten by the Bey but for the Consuls of France and England it presented an opportunity - a  pretext to pressure the Bey on August 13, 1857 to introduce reforms based on justice, security and the freedoms granted to all subjects. After some hesitation, Bey introduced reforms based on the principles of justice and freedom.

The Fundamental Pact was proclaimed.

Read article in full (French)

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